Second Chances on Fate-Locked Actions

Fallen London
1

Hi, folks. I just had a weird experience with a Fate-locked action and wanted to ask if the behavior that I noticed was intended or not.

I drew the opportunity card you get at Marked by the Eater-of-Chains level 1, and since my character has barely enough Dangerous to unlock that story, neither of the actions were particularly likely to work. I had 3 Fate from answering survey questions and decided to use it on the 3-Fate-locked option that’s a little easier and also uses Foxfire Candles; since it was a risky challenge on an opportunity card, I also used a Hard-Earned Lesson to get a second chance. I took the option (paying my 3 Fate), failed, used the Hard-Earned Lesson… and couldn’t actually take my second chance, because I didn’t have any more Fate and the option was locked. I was okay with a failure result, because it was a hard challenge and the message implied there’d be interesting story content about the Eater behind the Fate-locked option regardless, but instead I paid 3 Fate and a second chance for nothing. I still had the card, but I discarded it because I figured trying the non-Fate-locked option at my current Dangerous wasn’t worth the risks.

Are Fate-locked options with checks involved really supposed to lock you out of second chances until you pay the Fate again? Is this known/intended behavior? If this is expected, I’ll probably avoid Fake-locked options that involve chance where the checks aren’t at straightforward difficulty for me, and I’ll definitely not bother using second chances on this stuff.

Sorry if this has been covered before, but I didn’t see any other threads that looked to address this issue. I’d appreciate any feedback and advice that people have; I’m a new-ish player (had an account years ago, but rejoined with a new one about two weeks ago), and I enjoy the game, but I’m trying to work out the kinks of how to play it again.

2

You should probably mail support@failbettergames.com, because it does sound kinda off and these sort of fate branches are kinda rare.
edited by Estelle Knoht on 4/3/2015

3

As a related question, how are Second Chances actually supposed to work? Are they meant to act as a reroll on the same action or simply as a second chance of avoiding a failure but still requiring spending actions and all the resources? I’ve been playing for a few months now and have always assumed the former without paying much attention but recently got several unpleasant surprises when trying to second chance a number of 6-Action or 5-Action choices. Obviously, the Fate example above is the most egregious case but as a more general point, requiring re-paying of whatever cost was sort of news to me. Is that the intended behaviour?

4

I don’t frequently use Second Chances on Fate-locked content, but as I recall I did so last Halloween and it didn’t consume Fate on the second try. You need enough Fate to qualify for the action, but it won’t subtract it again. Pretty sure, anyways.

5

I’ve already emailed support@failbettergames.com about this, though my issue didn’t concern Fate, which is much more serious.

There seems to be a bug now that requires the same for a second chance attempt as was required of the initial attempt, but actions aren’t actually deducted. So when I use the ‘unique talents’ of my Overgoat I need to have 8 Actions for the second chance after already spending 8 Actions on the initial attempt. But once I have those 8 Actions, and can make that second attempt, they’re not deducted.

I’m sure the same applies to the Fate. If you’d had 3 Fate left after spending 3 Fate, it probably wouldn’t have deducted those 3 Fate. It was probably just a check to see that you had them before letting you proceed. Though unlike Actions, Fate doesn’t trickle in as you are waiting.

And this is a rather recent change, since I only started noticing it a few days ago. About the same time I noticed the new look on the selling/buying interface. I guess someone made a small mistake somewhere?

6

I’m having the exact same issue as you, Gillsing. Additionally, now when I exit the Overgoat card because my second chance didn’t take, the card stays in my deck. I wasted a whole bunch of actions in my confusion!

7

The card is supposed to stay in your hand. That’s the Second Chance trick, and as far as I know it’s been like that for a while.

8

Would make the Nadir a bit of a mare to get enigmas from without that. I can go through more than a dozen confident smiles (and action points) each week on one particular card there!

9

I remember whining on the forum about that a few years ago, and Alexis said it was intentional or something to that effect.

10

[color=#990000] Hello,

Thanks to a few bug reports, we think we’ve pinned this (it testing your actions/fate again on the second chance, though not actually taking) down and sorted out a fix. If anyone still has this, could they drop a line into support - support@failbettergames.com? (The perhaps not keeping the card is something else, and intended.)

Thanks,

Babel :-)[/color]
edited by babelfishwars on 4/7/2015

11

I remember whining on the forum about that a few years ago, and Alexis said it was intentional or something to that effect.[/quote]

I think i remember reading something about them deliberately implementing it a looooong time ago (I think there was a period where it didn’t even consume the actions)